I'm sure you've all heard it by now. I first read about it on Simon Murphy's blog, but it looks like a rookie mistake with Excel might have caused Barclay's to acquire more of Lehman Brothers' contracts than it wanted.
Here's a link to the original article, feel free to browse: Lehman Buyout Excel Confusion
And a copy of the legal motion filed by Barclay's: Legal Motion
The mayhem starts on page four.
Turns out some of the contracts were listed on hidden rows.
Trying to keep data from end users by hiding rows, yet still sending it to them, instead of moving it to another workbook? That's like pasting a chart into a PowerPoint slide by copying and pasting. A double click reveals all your underlying data.
The only way I could duplicate the error was to create a spreadsheet with a header row and several rows of fake data, with one column containing either "Y" or "N". If you filter on "Y" (by going to Data>Filter>AutoFilter to get the filter arrows) so that the "N" rows are hidden, and then delete the entire column, the hidden rows (the rows with "N") automagically unhide themselves!.
Try it, if you dare, and feel the rush of costing your employer millions!
Enjoy,
JP
About JP
2 Comments:
ahhh… hidden rows! they've gotten me a couple of times when I was working on gigs and someone sent me excel files with hidden rows/columns and got pissed off that I didn't "complete" the job. Nothing as drastic as this though!
WOW.
I was surprised, but it makes sense — when you delete the filtered column, Excel doesn't hold the filter condition, because it simply doesn't exist anymore. So it shows all of the rows, which is the state it was in before the filter was applied.
Thx,
JP